EVENING.

BY A TAILOR.

DAY hath put on his jacket, and around His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs, And hold communion with the things about me. Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid, That binds the skirt of night's descending robe ! The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads, Do make a music like to rustling satin, As the light breezes smooth their downy nap.

Ha! what is this that rises to my touch,

So like a cushion? Can it be a cabbage?
It is, it is that deeply injured flower,

Which boys do flout us with ; —but yet I love thee,

Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout.

Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright
As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath
Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air;
But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau,
Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences,
And growing portly in his sober garments.

Is that a swan that rides upon the water?
O no, it is that other gentle bird,
Which is the patron of our noble calling.
I well remember, in my early years,

When these young hands first closed upon a goose;

I have a scar upon my thimble finger,
Which chronicles the hour of young ambition.
My father was a tailor, and his father,

And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors;
They had an ancient goose, -it was an heir-loom

From some remoter tailor of our race.

It happened I did see it on a time

When none was near, and I did deal with it,
And it did burn me, oh, most fearfully!

It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs, And leap elastic from the level counter, Leaving the petty grievances of earth,

The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears, And all the needles that do wound the spirit, For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, Lays bare her shady bosom ; —I can feel

With all around me; I can hail the flowers

That sprig earth's mantle, and yon quiet bird,
That rides the stream, is to me as a brother.
The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets,
Where Nature stows away her loveliness.
But this unnatural posture of the legs
Cramps my extended calves, and I must go

Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion.

9

THE DORCHESTER GIANT.

THERE was a giant in time of old,

A mighty one was he;

He had a wife, but she was a scold,
So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold;
And he had children three.

It happened to be an election day,

And the giants were choosing a king;

The people were not democrats then,
They did not talk of the rights of men,
And all that sort of thing.

Then the giant took his children three

And fastened them in the pen ;

The children roared; quoth the giant, "Be still!" And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill

Rolled back the sound again.

Then he brought them a pudding stuffed with plum.

As big as the State-House dome ;

Quoth he, "There's something for you to eat;
So stop your mouths with your 'lection treat,
And wait till your dad comes home."

So the giant pulled him a chestnut stout,
And whittled the boughs away;

The boys and their mother set up a shout,
Said he, "You 're in, and you can't get out,
Bellow as loud as you may."

Off he went, and he growled a tune
As he strode the fields along;

'Tis said a buffalo fainted away,
And fell as cold as a lump of clay,

When he heard the giant's song.

But whether the story 's true or not,
It is not for me to show;

There's many a thing that 's twice as queer
In somebody's lectures that we hear,

And those are true, you know.